Job title:
2025-2027 Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow of Chinese Buddhism
Department:
Numata Center for Buddhist Studies
Bio/CV:
Lu Huang received her PhD from Temple University in May 2025. Her research interests include the transmission of Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma in early medieval China, with a particular focus on the thought of Abhidharma masters before Xuanzang. Her publications, which have appeared in Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies and Religions, explore issues such as the borderland complex and the construction of religious authority within transnational transmission networks spanning India, Central Asia, and China.
Her dissertation investigates a sacred site called “Chicken-foot Mountain” (Jizu shan) in the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province in southwest China. Supported by the ACLS/Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, the project asks how a local mountain in Dali came to be conflated with Kukkuṭapāda Mountain in ancient India, where Mahākāśyapa is said to reside in meditation while awaiting the future Buddha Maitreya, to whom he will transmit Śākyamuni’s robe. It examines the roles of local Bai gentry, the Ming state, and native chieftains in nearby regions—such as the Naxi Mu chieftains and Dai A chieftains—in this transformation process.In addition, the dissertation explores how this sacred site, situated in a multicultural frontier, became a nexus within transregional Buddhist networks that connected Tibetan, Chinese, Naxi, and Bai Buddhists during the Ming and Qing dynasties, with its influence eventually extending into Southeast Asia in the 20th century.
